TABLE OF CONTENTS
Manufacture
The bronze guild was busy that day, what with the large amount of work that they had been bidden to do. Master craftsmen were working on large complex statues, others were carving detailing into finished products, still others were doing something else entirely. It was no surprise that the small bronze cista that had been commissioned by a small, not very well-off family had been sent off by the guild master Teucre to the apprentice craftsmen for them to work on.
The cista itself was already made, a small bronze box sitting on four feet with chains around its sides to lift it by. What was not completed was the lid: the family had requested a few small Gorgons to be made and attached to lift the lid. This task was left to the apprentices: they were to cast the head and body separately then to carve in the details and attach the two pieces together.
The head was given to an apprentice, Aule, who had shown a good eye for detail: he carved in small, intricate detailing into the face, making certain that the eyes were pronounced with the hair pulled back and curly. If one eye was a tad lop-sided, well, the gorgon already seemed to be too good for the family who commissioned it.
The body was an entirely different story. The apprentice, Vel, was new to the guild and had little to no training. He was rough and unable to perform any fine detailing. His lines were thick and blocky, leaving no room for detailing on places such as the wings of the Gorgon. He was rough enough that, when he began to chisel the lines of the wings into the right wing, he began chipping away at the wing. This mistake went unnoticed, for a small amount of time.
The head and body were attached to one another then presented to Teucre. However, when he took hold of it and began to turn it, the right wing snapped off the body. It was deemed an imperfect work and thrown away.
***
This broken handle from a cista has a simple beginning: it was made for a simple family and it was made simply. It is said in the collection that it is Etruscan, though its place of discovery is unnamed. The handle was made sometime in between 400 and 320 BCE, the time at which Etruscan bronze work was at its most prolific judging from other bronze artifacts found at the same time.
It can be assumed from solid body and simplistic style that the piece was created by lost-wax casting, particularly solid lost-wax casting. “Solid lost-wax casting…which is also the earliest and simplest process, calls for a model fashioned in solid wax. This model is surrounded with clay and then heated to remove the wax and harden the clay. Next, the mold is inverted and molten metal poured into it. When the metal cools, the bronze-smith breaks open the clay model to reveal a solid bronze reproduction” (Hemingway 2003). This method was used most often to form small figures, which could then be carved into for detailing or other uses.
It is certain that this Gorgon handle, as it is labelled in the collection albeit its appearance being closer to that of a siren, was made as a handle by two of its distinct features. For one, there is a rivet carved into the feet of the Gorgon, making it stand upright and easy to grip. The second feature is the ridge on the back of the Gorgon, which gives its back a curve. This curve could have been used to more easily grip the Gorgon, allowing it to be pulled as if on a lid.
Those rivets, along with its size, means that the Gorgon was made for a cista. A cista is a small bronze box commonly used to hold small precious items, such as cosmetics or perfume (Praenastine). However, many remaining cistae were found empty in tombs at Praeneste, leading to doubt towards that assumption. These cistae are of a larger size then cistae found in other locations, leading to the belief that they may have also had ritual uses (Paggi 2003).
The conclusion that the Gorgon was used for a cista and not some other vessel was reached due to the size of the Gorgon handle and its use as decoration. When compared to other handles, the Gorgon is about the same size as other handles. Most “handles of the lids [of cistae] were often figures, such as a man or a sphinx, or figural groups…the engraved scenes represented images from mythology” (Boundless). The Greeks often traded with the Etruscans, lending them their monsters in mythology, such as the sphinx mentioned in the point above. This only supports the theory that this bronze Gorgon handle was made in Etruria.
The Greeks and the Etruscans had a long-standing trade history, in both goods and beliefs; the design of the Gorgon handle proves this. Religious icons were featured foremost in many Etruscan works, especially bronze work such as cistae.
Use
It really was a shame that the handle broke immediately in guild master Teucre’s hand. The handle had been a good piece of work, considering that it was created by a couple of apprentices. But nonetheless, it was still a work of a couple of apprentices. It should have been expected.
Teucre thought back to the family that had commissioned the cista. They were a small, not well-known family at all, barely scraping by as it was. This cista was supposed to go into a grave of one of their grandparents, he believed that they had said. The handle would never be used anyway, just admired by the dead. It shouldn’t matter that it had broken.
However, it was still a cista associated with his guild and he couldn’t let anyone believe that he would allow sub-par work. He threw the handle away from him and demanded the apprentice who had been working on the body, Vel, to go make another one. By himself, this time.
***
The previous article on the manufacture of the Gorgon handle tells of the conclusion that the Gorgon handle was once a part of a cista, however, in summary: a cista was a small bronze box, usually ornamented with handles in the shapes of mythological creatures or characters (Boundless), which some believe to be for everyday use as storage boxes for small objects, such as jewelry, perfume, or combs (Praenastine), while other state that they were primarily for ritual use in burial practices (Paggi 2003).
Either way, the theory that will be used in this section is that the handle was never used due to the abnormal patches of erosion and tarnish on the handle.
The lack of wear on the so-called Gorgon makes one believe that the handle was discarded before it was used. The handle is in varying shades of green and brown from the oxidation of the bronze that the handle is made of. On a handle, it should be presumed that the wear would be worse where it was constantly handled; this area on the Gorgon would be around its middle as that is where the handler’s hand would be able to grab onto.
However, this is not the case with the handle. Instead, the wear is worst around the left wing. The middle of the Gorgon is the same as the rest of the handle, such as the legs and head. This inconsistency in wear proves that the handle was never used.
Science both supports and brings this assumption into question. On one hand, “the tarnish, or patina, is caused by a chemical reaction between the various metals in the alloy, and acids or other corrosive materials. Acids in the skin can cause uneven tarnish from over-handling” (Rayburn-Trobaugh 2011). With this, it can be said that all the discoloration on the Gorgon handle is due to human handling. Then, when the object was discarded, it tarnished and was damaged at equal rates on all parts. This gives no insight as to whether the handle was ever used.
However, it is the conclusion of government scientists that areas that are stressed during the process of metal-working are more prone to be attacked by corrosion (GSA 2016). It can be said that the rates of corrosion on the Gorgon changed depending on what areas were worked at the most, which were then affected the most after discard. Thus, the areas that are most discolored and eroded, the wings of the Gorgon handle, were the areas that were most used.
On the other hand, there is science that supports the conclusion that human handling had little to no effect on the rates of change of the metal. In places of the handle, a dark brown sheen that indicates oxidation can be seen, however, it is mostly hidden behind the green tint of the handle.
Sulfurization causes light green streaks on bronze while the rest of the metal becomes a dark black. The body of the Gorgon handle is less dark black-ish and more so dark green with dark brown-black areas in places. However, there are light green streaks highly visible around the neck area of the Gorgon handle and on the tops of the wings, lending credence to the primary tool of bronze aging being sulfurization.
Sulfurization is caused by a chemical reaction “with many atmospheric pollutants…[such] as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Both are produced in industrial manufacturing processes… The initial symptom of sulfurization is the appearance of patches of light green primarily on exposed surfaces. This usually begins on horizontal surfaces which receive the greatest exposure to rains and water run-off” (GSA 2016).
What this means is that the tarnish of the handle was caused by exposure to the elements without any cleaning. This science says that any wear and tear done to the handle before discard is unable to be seen underneath the large scale effects the weather has had on the Gorgon handle.
In conclusion, even if it can be proven that the handle was once on or going to be on a cista, the combination of natural wear and the inconsistent wear on the Gorgon handle renders us incapable of coming to a complete conclusion on whether the handle was ever in use or not, though the awkwardly placed wear does lean more towards a conclusion that the handle was never in use.
Reuse
It was obvious to guild master Teucre that the mistakes done on the body of the cista handle had ruined the rest of the bronze. It was now an overly stressed mess that, even if melted down and reused, would always be liable to break at any moment. One small mistake by an inexperienced apprentice had ruined a good amount of metal.
Oh well. He sighed as he tossed the handle onto the junk pile. It was no skin off his back. The handle had been made of an insignificant amount of bronze anyways. They had more than enough as it was. There was no good reason for a guild of their prestige to use subpar metal anyway. With that, Teucre turned around and walked away, leaving the handle on the slowly accumulating pile of junk and scrap metal near the door.
***
The Gorgon handle would not have been reused in any form or fashion after the mistakes done to the bronze. With the bronze stressed too much by too much force, no solution would have fixed the now damaged make-up of the metal. To the present day, there is still no general consensus on how to fix it available online, either from government conservationists or modern bronze-workers (GSA 2016). Besides, Etruria had resources to spare in the era of the Gorgon handle’s creation. Etrutria was rich with copper and iron, meaning that they had no shortage of the primary metal used to make bronze. As such, it would not have been a necessity to melt down the bronze to remake it all over again.
In addition, Etruscan bronze cistae were in large demand and became common in the era of Etruscan bronze working. One archaeological site with a wealth of cistae is named Praeneste, very close to Rome and home to a large multitude of “princely burials” (Paggi 2004). The site was discovered sometime in the nineteenth century and continuously looted thereafter for bronze objects such as cistae. In 1866, archaeologist Ann Schoene documented 70 fully intact cista at Praeneste and did not even seek to include those that were not complete. In 1882, M. Fernique, also working at Praeneste, recorded that the previous number of 70 had shot up to at least 100. In the modern day, archaeologists have recovered a total of 118 whole cistae in total from the single town of Praeneste (Smith 1890). These cistae were only from a graveyard, albeit one for wealthy citizens, in a single town in Etrutria; who is to say how many more there were that were not used for funerary purposes, let alone how many graves still hold cistae in the present day?
The Etruscans also had great pride in their status as bronze craftsmen. Hemingway and Hemingway argue that “The Etruscans were master bronze smiths who exported their finished products all over the Mediterranean. Finely worked bronzes… attest to the high quality achieved by Etruscan artists, particularly in the Archaic and Classical (ca. 490–300 B.C.) periods” (Hemingway & Hemingway 2004). Their work was distributed across the Mediterranean Sea and, as such, any bronze craftsmen would have had a good livelihood. If a small amount of bronze was wasted, it was no large loss to their profits.
In all, due to the Etruscans’ status of master craftsmen and the Etruscan’s wealth of both resources and cistae in general, the Gorgon handle would have been thrown into the junk pile, not to be reused as the metal was already corrupted by the shoddy work and would be of no great loss to anyone.
Deposition
The Gorgon handle had just been thrown out for shoddy manufacturing. It lay on the trash pile of wasted wax, broken tools, and other waste for a long while. The pile grew larger, increment by increment, until it was deemed too large to remain in the abandoned corner of the workshop any longer. At this point, Teucre commanded a slave in the workshop, Tullus, to remove the pile.
The pile took several hours to remove completely from the workshop. There was a large amount of material to handle and many small pieces amongst it. At last, Tullus managed to get everything to the empty space behind the workshop. This empty space had various caches of trash scattered inside so it Tullus set to digging in a spot where it looked as though the dirt were undisturbed so as to leave room for the next trash removal.
When the hole was deep enough that the entire pile could fit inside with space from the top, Tullus immediately tossed all of the refuse inside of it and covered it with the dirt that he had dug out. The Gorgon handle was lost among the dirt and scraps in the pile, buried.
***
Etruscan waste is not a well-documented topic in archaeology. Several primary archaeological sites that could provide clues as to their waste habits are currently involved in an argument over whether they are funerary hoards, middens, or trash heaps.
“Some authors have considered [hoards] to be a mere by-product of metal-working, a frozen moment in time of the production process. For this interpretation, the quantity of apparent scrap metal may be supportive. Others have emphasized other forms of intentionality…Support for ritualization is given by the breakage, and more emphatically, by the deliberate manipulation of fragments…” (Stoddart 8) is a quote explaining just why there is confusion over the matter: there are some trash heaps with deliberate movement and hoards with scrap metal. In all, it is confusing to say which assemblages are what sort due to the intersecting definitions and actions done onto them.
In my section on the manufacture and use, however, I did say that the Gorgon handle was thrown onto the waste pile, not the pile dedicated to reuse. As such, I have drawn conclusions based on some archaeologists’ conclusions that the disposal system in Etruria was similar to the one later adopted and adapted by Rome after its founding (Rohner 115). As such, most of what has been mentioned here is Roman custom, which is believed to have come from Etruria as their predecessor.
An intact workshop in a Roman military fort in Britain revealed that most metal workers simply dumped their trash wherever they were able: “There is clear evidence that the buildings erected in the area behind the north-east defences during this phase were used to accommodate metalworking activity. This evidence took two main forms…Secondly, material residues of metalworking- particularly copper alloy- were recovered, in the form of scrap metal, crucibles, moulds, metal droplets and slag… The absence of debris assemblages in the workshops behind the northern defences, comparable to those from the east intervallum road, could be explained by differences in the pattern of waste disposal in the two areas. It is conceivable that waste from the north rampart workshops was just dumped over the curtain wall and down the slope to the north of the fort. When the north berm was excavated in 1984, it was evident that this area was indeed treated as a rubbish dump” (Rushworth 65). This whole passage, albeit long, summarizes how the archaeological team discovered where the metal-working areas of the fort were: the remains of hearths and scattered metal remains, both buried outside the fort having been thrown out and around the workshop floor.
For the Gorgon, this leaves it two methods of deposition: it was either left on the floor and buried over time with the building or it was thrown into a random space outside of the workshop. I decided to have the Gorgon handle disposed of outside in a waste pit, as it has been concluded that Romans used waste pits for their trash when they weren’t just letting it pile up (Watson 2017).
All in all, the Gorgon handle was buried into a random area near the workshop as trash, as evidenced by Roman trash disposal customs which are theorized to come from Etruscan trash disposal customs.
Acquisition
Albert William van Buren strolled along the streets of Rome with his fiancée Elizabeth on his arm. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon; the sun was shining and the streets were crowded with masses of people. The year was 1906.
The couple was coming for a short trip from Van Buren’s teaching job at Yale. He had enjoyed Rome very much during his study there and had wished to return to show Elizabeth one of his favorite cities in the world. They were to be married in 1914 and he wanted to enjoy every moment he had with her. He was having a lovely time strolling the streets of Rome.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not. The heat of Rome was getting to her. She already had a sickly deposition despite her fierce spirit and this weather only made it worse. They must have made a nice-looking couple, the wife leaning on her husband and her parasol shielding them both from the beating sun.
They were strolling along one of the many shadowed alleys of Rome, this particular one connecting the Via del Corso (one of the busiest streets in Rome, connecting the Capitoline Hill to the Piazza del Populo) to the Piazza Navona (a small square known for its fountains and liveliness). These alleyways were commonly filled with street vendors, their wares spread out on colored blankets as they called out their wares.
Albert had been chatting with his wife on a recent expedition in his Classical archaeology lecture when a red blanket caught his eye. On the blanket lay small terracotta figures, clay stirrup jars and other small assorted artifacts. He carefully steered his way through the crowded street to the blanket and the man attending to it. Elizabeth joined in when she saw the objects as well, her interest just as piqued as her fiancé’s.
Albert crouched down in front of the blanket, getting a better look at the objects for sale. Most were in bad conditions, broken into pieces, chipped, paint flaking off, unrecognizable for cracks. One sole object looked worthy of any attention at all: a small handle of a woman with wings, but which only had one wing.
“You are looking at my best object, sir,” the seller stated, leaning against the wall of the alleyway. “Most intact of everything I have.”
“May I?” Albert asked, gesturing. The seller shrugged and Albert picked up the piece. Solid bronze, fairly heavy. Maybe a little lead? He turned it over in his hand. Very basic. Not much detailing. A ledge on the back and a rivet in the feet.
“Maybe it’s a repurposed cista handle,” Elizabeth whispered to him in English, “Or maybe a foot? I think it’s from a cista either way; look at those ledges. There was something like that at the Academy when we visited, right?”
“Where did you get this?” Albert asked the seller, finally looking away from the piece.
“My grandfather found it in his backyard in the ‘90s. It’s been handed down since. I’m getting rid of it now that my daughter knocked it down and broke the wing off.” That was probably a lie, Albert thought, the break looks older than that.
But was the whole story a lie? For all Albert knew, the seller was a tombarolo, a grave-thief. What to do, what to do…
“How much would you want for it?” He asked, inspecting the seller’s face.
“300 lire.” 300 lire? That was around…15 dollars, if 20 lire equaled 1 dollar. But still…
“Is that not expensive for a broken object?” Elizabeth interjected. She was always the more strong-spirited of the two of them, and the more likely she was to bargain. “We’ll give you 150; you’re not getting much business anyways.”
The two began to argue over the price as Albert continued to inspect the handle. Yes, most likely a cista, Etruscan at that. Not as valuable as it could be if the whole cista was there but a good object for study nonetheless; the collection needed more depictions of mythological beasts, even if he didn’t know what it was.
He was struck out of his musings by Elizabeth snatching his wallet out of his pockets and paying the seller 100 lire. Not a bad price.
Albert stood up, tucking the little figurine into his pocket and offering his arm to his wife once more. He nodded a goodbye to the seller and continued on his way, wondering whether or not it would even be prudent to catalog the artifact. It would most likely end up as a study object alone, anyway.
***
Albert William Van Buren is best known for joint job as the Professor of Archaeology and caretaker of the library at the American Academy in Rome. While studying and working in Rome, Van Buren frequently donated small artifacts such as terracotta figurines or sherds to the Academy, bought with his own money and time (Geffcken 46). In total, his study collection made up some 81 objects with innumerable pot sherds (Bradbury 2011).
However, this collection may or may not be entirely legal. “Italy is one of the most severely affected countries in Europe to suffer losses to the illicit antiquities trade” (Park 935). As such, I deliberately left the legality of the seller’s acquisition up to question. Van Buren’s concerns after i tombaroli, raiders of both tombs and any archaeological site (Park 931), were quite valid for his time period.
Italian archaeology laws were nonexistent until 1939, when Italy declared all artifacts found after 1902 property of the state (Park 939-40). As such, most of Van Buren’s collection would have been collected without the knowledge of date or legality.
In the specific case of the Gorgon handle, no date nor location was ever given for its acquisition in his archives. The Handle was not included in his original purchasing notebook of 1902. However, in an attempt to catalog the collection sometime in the late 1960’s at Smith, there is a sketch of handle present. In addition, in the back of the original catalog, there is a later list of artifacts not included in the original, along with a few sketches. The Gorgon is in there, simply labelled, “No. # Gorgon Hd”.
As such, it can be assumed that the handle was acquired by Van Buren sometime between 1902 and his bequeathing of the collection to Yale in 1908 (Bradbury 2011). Rome is and was a center of trade of all types so I found it most likely to be found there. Also, for the sake of historical accuracy, I must say that I do not actually know if Elizabeth made a journey with Albert to Rome before 1908 when he received a job at the American Academy; however, I thought that it would make an interesting narrative if I added her. Besides, there’s no account saying that they didn’t.
As such, this narrative assumes that the Gorgon handle was acquired jointly by Albert Van Buren and Elizabeth Douglas (soon to be Van Buren) in the summer of 1906 on the streets of Rome from an unnamed dealer who received it from an unknown place, as far as the Van Buren’s know.
Bibliography
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Images
Praenistine. Bronze cista (toiletries box). 350-325 BCE. Bronze. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Praenastine. Cista Handle in Form of Two Wrestlers. 4th-3rd C BCE. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Art.thewalters.org. Web. 14 Feb. 2017. <http://art.thewalters.org/detail/27408/cista-handle-in-the-form-of-two-wrestlers/>.
Unknown. Cista foot. N.d. Bronze. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.